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The Last Guardian confirmed for this year

The Last Guardian may finally be in the home stretch. Sony had said earlier this month that the oft-delayed game would be released this year, but now Fumito Ueda has also confirmed the time frame.

In an interview with Edge magazine (via International Business Times), the creator of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus said that he is worried and excited at the same time about the game's release this year. The Edge preview said that the enormous cat-rat-bird creature called Trico will be hard to tame, can could eventually become annoying, something Ueda said was possible.

"It would be a lie to stay that I have no worries," he told the magazine, "but another game where you can completely control a creature wouldn't be enjoyable for me because there are a lot out there where you can do that. I think I've had enough of them."

Ueda went on to say that the development team has put a lot of work into Trico's AI in an attempt to give it a distinct personality.

"This creature isn't like the cute pets that exist in other games, or an ally that's really useful," he said. "The role of the creature is ambiguous; that's something we wanted to express in the game, and it doesn't always do what you ask it to do. That's one of the themes of The Last Guardian. It's something that's difficult, and completely different. I want to create the next thing - an experience that people have never had before. The amount of code is very large compared to AI in conventional games. We've given this creature its own desires, so depending on what action it wants to take, that affects everything, including its animation. It's not like a normal humanoid character."

The preview offered up several new gameplay elements as well, including a shield mechanic that allows the boy to target a spot, and Trico will then blast that spot with a breath weapon.

John Keefer

Contributing Editor

John Keefer is a curmudgeon that has been in journalism for 35 years, the last 16 in the video games industry. He loves real-time strategy games and prefers old-school Total Annihilation to StarCraft. He also loves isometric RPGs, and has been addicted to World of Warcraft for more than 10 years. He sucks at shooters and multiplayer and is purely a PC guy. And being a former member of Shack, he also likes Chatty. Go figure.